The first time for a visit by a high ranking cabinet official was in August, 2000, when Secretary of Education Richard W. Riley visited the Portland and Wilmot elementary campuses.  On Wednesday night, Secretary Duncan delivered a lecture on education reform and the administration’s back-to-school agenda at the William J. Clinton Presidential Center in Little Rock.

Secretary Duncan began his Courage in the Classroom back to school bus tour to hold conversations with and honor America’s teachers in Little Rock Thursday morning with a roundtable discussion with teachers at Central High School.

He and his party then boarded a bus to travel to Hamburg. Along the way, the bus stopped in Monticello to pick up Hamburg teachers, Tonya Higginbotham and Kathy Barnett, both pre-k teachers, Carol Moyers and Toni Elliott, along with Special Programs Coordinator Marilyn Chambers and Americorps workers Emily Barnett and Blake Higginbotham for lunch on the bus with the Secretary and a discussion of the Hamburg School District’s programs  with emphasis on the pre-k program.
After arriving in Hamburg, the Secretary toured the Hamburg pre-k classrooms, observing what the children were doing and visiting with teachers, aides, foster grandparents and Americorps workers. The group then visited the high school to observe part of the work being paid for with federal stimulus funds, also meeting with vocational students and teachers.

Secretary Duncan told Ledger publisher David Moyers that Hamburg was selected as a stop on the tour because he wanted to “see what works.” He added,

“You have so many good things happening.”

Duncan said that it was inspiring to see a teacher, an aide, an Americorps worker and a foster grandparent all working in a pre-k classroom. “You have made an extraordinary commitment to early childhood education,” he said.

The Secretary said that local citizens “have a lot to be proud of,” congratulating the district and its citizens.

After visiting with vocational students and faculty at the high school, Duncan said he believes vocational education “is a huge piece of the answer” to problems in the educational system. He said that the nation has to continue to create programs in vocational education which will help reduce dropout rates as well as a make classrooms work more effectively. Vocational education, he said, was better in the 1960s than it is now. “I see a commitment here,” he said.

The Arkansas Better Chance site in Hamburg is one of more than 300 programs serving more than 25,000 children statewide. The state-supported early education program is among the 10 best in the nation, according to the National Institute for Early Education Research.

“Secretary Duncan has the opportunity to visit one of the most successful education models in the nation,” said Rich Huddleston, executive director of Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families. “We hope he’ll remember this example back in Washington and work to make education reform start with high-quality pre-k, especially as Congress prepares to renew the No Child Left Behind Act.”

With the federal No Child Left Behind Act due for reauthorization, Huddleston said Congress can help states and districts replicate Arkansas’ success by including early learning in the reauthorization of the ESEA. It can also dedicate funding specifically for 3- and 4-year-old children that can leverage federal, state and local resources, provide incentives for greater investments and ensure that dollars are targeted to high-impact early learning programs.

Arkansas Better Chance pre-k programs are supported by a blend of local and state funds and are run by a mixture of private and public agencies statewide. ABC meets nine out of 10 quality standards benchmarks and ranks tenth in the nation in per-child funding, according to NIEER.

Hamburg education officials say the pre-k program, which now serves 90 percent of all 4-year-old children in the area, has made an impact on their schools. A few years ago two of the four elementary schools and two secondary schools were under review for poor performance. Since the program has grown, all the elementary schools are now meeting state requirements in reading and math. All the schools have scores above the state average for math and literacy.

“The positive results we’ve seen in Hamburg are similar to many other towns and cities in Arkansas,” said Tonya Russell, director at the Division of Child Care and Early Childhood Education at the Arkansas Department of Human Services. “High-quality early education is a fundamental part of preparing Arkansas children for college and careers.”

Research shows that investing in high quality early childhood education is among the best ways to prepare children for learning and reduce social costs like remediation and incarceration, said AACF’s Rich Huddleston.

AACF’s research also shows that children who complete quality pre-k programs enter school more prepared cognitively, emotionally and socially, are less likely to be held back or need special education services and are more likely to complete high school and become successful and productive adults.

Following the visit to Hamburg, the Secretary and his entourage traveled to Monroe, LA, to visit the students’ vegetable garden at J. S. Clark Elementary School. They then traveled to Tallulah, LA, for a session, including playing basketball with teachers, students and coaches.

On Friday, Duncan planned to visit Jackson State University in Mississippi before going on to Hattiesburg High School and then to Mobile, Alabama.

During the bus tour, Duncan was visiting classrooms breaking ground in closing the achievement gap, early education, school nutrition and safety and teacher recruitment.

He was joined by public school teachers now serving as U.S. Department of Education teaching fellows as well as local leaders.

After his visit to the South, the Secretary of Education planned to continue his trip next week, visiting schools in Latham, New York, Springfield, MA, Keene, NH, Portsmouth, NH, Manchester, NH, and Portland, Maine.

To equip teachers and students for the new academic year, Target stores donated a variety of commonly needed supplies to each school Secretary Duncan visits on the tour.

Secretary Duncan was nominated by President-elect Barack Obama and was confirmed by the U.S. Senate on Inauguration Day. In his confirmation hearings, Duncan called education “the most pressing issue facing America,” adding that “preparing young people for success in life is not just a moral obligation of society” but also an “economic imperative.” “Education is also the civil rights issue of our generation,” he said, “the only sure path out of poverty and the only way to achieve a more equal and just society.”

Prior to his appointment, Duncan served as the chief executive officer of the Chicago Public Schools, a position to which he was appointed by Mayor Richard M. Daley, from June, 2001, through December, 2008, becoming the longest-serving big-city education superintendent in the country.

As CEO, Duncan’s mandate was to raise education standards and performance, improve teacher and principal quality, and increase learning options. In seven and a half years, he united education reformers, teachers, principals and business stakeholders behind an aggressive education reform agenda that included opening over 100 new schools, expanding after-school and summer learning programs, closing down underperforming schools, increasing early childhood and college access, dramatically boosting the caliber of teachers, and building public-private partnerships around a variety of education initiatives.

Among his most significant accomplishments during his tenure as CEO, an all-time high of 66.7 percent of the district’s elementary school students met or exceeded state reading standards, and their math scores also reached a record high, with 70.6 percent meeting or exceeding the state’s standards. At high schools, Chicago Public School students posted gains on the ACT at three times the rate of national gains and nearly twice that of the state’s. Also, the number of CPS high school students taking Advanced Placement courses tripled and the number of students passing AP classes more than doubled. Duncan has increased graduation rates and boosted the total number of college scholarships secured by CPS students to $157 million.

Prior to joining the Chicago Public Schools, Duncan ran the non-profit education foundation Ariel Education Initiative (1992-1998), which helped fund a college education for a class of inner-city children under the I Have A Dream program. He was part of a team that later started a new public elementary school built around a financial literacy curriculum, the Ariel Community Academy, which today ranks among the top elementary schools in Chicago.

From 1987 to 1991, Duncan played professional basketball in Australia, where he also worked with children who were wards of the state.

Duncan graduated magna cum laude from Harvard University in 1987, majoring in sociology. He was co-captain of Harvard’s basketball team and was named a first team Academic All-American. He credits basketball with his team-oriented and highly disciplined work ethic.

His late father was a professor at the University of Chicago and his mother has run a South Side tutoring program for inner-city children since 1961. As a student in Chicago, Duncan spent afternoons in his mother’s tutoring program and also worked there during a year off from college. He credits this experience with shaping his understanding of the challenges of urban education.

Duncan is married to Karen Duncan and they have two children, daughter Claire, 8, and son Ryan, 5, who attend a public elementary school in Arlington, VA.